You are not the lives you save
by Bleeding Rainbows
Summary: And if Amber loves James, I love James.


Relationships: Greg House/James Wilson, Amber Volakis/James Wilson, Greg House/Amber Volakis

- This is a parody/adaptation of Palahniuk's book Fight Club. Which means it is STRICTLY based in the book, and I don't intend to plagiarize. Most of the quotes ARE from the book, exactly as they are, because that's the point of a parody.

- And it also alludes to the series finale

- And it all means huge spoilers

- Of course I gift this to my beloved TheFirebirdSong, who also gave me the idea.

* * *

><p><strong>You are not the lives you save<strong>

Amber gets me a job as a diagnostician, after that Amber's holding a scalpel in my throat saying, the first step to never get to be the patient is you dying first.

For a long time though, we were the most brilliant duo.

People are always asking, did I know about Amber Volakis.

The blade of the scalpel pressing precisely one millimeter before an incision in the skin of my throat, Amber says "We really won't die."

Against my gullet there's a number 10 blade, often utilized in more specialized surgeries such as for harvesting the radial artery during a coronary artery bypass operation, opening the bronchus during thoracic surgery and for Inguinal hernia repair.

It's so sharp I probably wouldn't feel the pain before she slits my right common carotid artery. I would collapse near instantly, prompt unconsciousness.  
>You are dying as of the instant of the cut. You body will gasp for a couple of minutes as a reflex action, spastic shaking, voiding of bowels and bladder. Blood pressure to brain drops. The brain turns off.<p>

I know this because Amber knows this.

"This isn't really death," She says. "We'll be legend. We won't grow old."  
>I say with a clenched jaw, Amber, you're talking about plastic surgery.<p>

The building we're standing on will probably be completely on fire in the next minutes.

The number one cause of death related to fires is smoke inhalation. An estimated 50%-80% of fire deaths are the result of smoke inhalation injuries rather than burns.

Bronchospasm and increased mucus production lead to reflex coughing. Shortness of breath. Hoarseness or noisy breathing may be a sign that fluids are collecting in the upper airway and may cause a blockage. Reddish eyes. Skin color range from pale to bluish to cherry red.

So Amber and I are on the top floor of a random old place where heroin addicts used to crawl and immerse inside their frontier-less trips inside their hallucinations, and we hear structures falling.

Talking about hallucinations.

Look over the window. It's a cloudy day, or it's the smoke. It's sizzling and I'm starting to get dizzy. The feeling you get is that you are being anesthetized for a surgery. You go to the clinic after a regular day of work.

You have ischemic heart disease.

You should sign here.

You don't understand any of it, and then someone opens you up and you die.

The breaking glass is a window right below us. A window blows out the side of the building, and then comes down another cornerstone.

That old saying, how you always kill the one you love, well, look, it works both ways.

With a scalpel under your chin and a sharp blade against your throat, you can only talk hissing between your teeth.

We're down to our last ten minutes.

Another window crashes down, and glass sprays out, sparkling flock-of-pigeons style, and the decrepit heroin paradise won't be here in nine minutes.

Medications developed to treat opioid addiction work through the same opioid receptors as the addictive drug, but are safer and less likely to produce the harmful behaviors that characterize addiction. Three types of medications include agonists, which activate opioid receptors; partial agonists, which also activate opioid receptors but produce a smaller response; and antagonists, which block the receptor and interfere with the rewarding effects of opioids.

Ask me about any symptom and any disease. Oh, all those crazy illnesses and patients.

Nine minutes.

I will soon pass out, slow as a tree falling in the forest. Timber. You can topple anyone given the right amount of any substance.

Amber and me at the third floor, the blade pulsing right above my artery, through ridiculously thin skin, I'm wondering how sterilized this scalpel is. We just totally forget about Amber's whole murder-suicide thing while we watch the flames around us, sizzling, shining, licking my skin even without touching me yet.

Eight minutes.

If I knew how this would all turn out, I'd be more than happy to be dead and in Heaven right now.

Seven minutes.

Inside that going down building with Amber's scalpel under my chin. While wood and floors and walls fall, smoke funnels go up from the broken windows and three blocks down the street probably he is watching, I know all of this: the blade, the hospital, the fire, it is really about James Wilson.

Six minutes.

We have sort of a triangle thing going here. I want Amber. Amber wants James. James wants me. I don't want James, and Amber doesn't want me around, not anymore. This isn't about love as in caring. This is about property as in ownership.

Without Wilson, Amber would have nothing.

Five minutes.

Maybe we would become a legend, maybe not. No, I say, but wait.

Where would Jesus be if no one had written the gospels?

Four minutes.

I breathe in to retreat my body as much as I can from that scalpel and I say, you want to be a legend, Amber, I'll make you a legend. I've been here from the beginning.

I remember everything.

Three minutes.  
>Then somebody yells.<p>

"Wait," and it's James coming toward us across the roof.

James is coming toward me, just me because Amber's gone. Poor. Amber is my hallucination, not his. Fast as a magic trick, Amber disappeared. And now I'm just one man holding a scalpel in my throat.

"I followed you," James yells. "All the people that were from your crew are out there. You don't have to do this. Put the scalpel down."

I can hear their voices outside. All the the immunologists, the infectious diseases experts, the neurologists, the surgeons, the medical people.

They're saying, "Wait."

Their voices come to me among the fire, saying, "Stop."

And, "We can help you."

"Let us help you."

I yell, go. Get out of here. This building is going to go down.

James yells, "I know."

This is like a total epiphany moment for me.

I'm not killing myself, I yell. I'm killing Amber.

I am the house's crumbling structure.

I remember everything.

"It's not love or anything," James shouts, "but I think I like you, too."

One minute. James likes Amber.

"No, I like you," James shouts. "I know the difference."

And nothing.

Nothing explodes or roars down.

I have to do this.

And I stick the blade.


End file.
